5 Game Of Thrones Scenes That Are More Shocking In The Books

Game Of Thrones is known for being gruesome and unpredictable, as there aren't many other places you can watch a live castration outside of videos of the beef industry. But the show has also received an increasing amount of backlash for being needlessly exploitative, focusing too much on rape, sexual violence, and sudden decapitations to make sure every season stays buzzy.

And believe it or not -- as fans of the Song Of Ice And Fire series of novels that the show is based on can tell you -- Game Of Thrones is actually pulling some of its punches. There are numerous scenes in the novels that were toned down or flat-out omitted from the television series, because in terms of hardcore fucked-upedness, HBO cannot hang with George "Reverend Run" Martin. For instance ...

(Spoilers for the books and the show ahead!)

#5. Brienne Has Her Face Bitten Off

HBO

When Brienne teams up with Podrick (and one or two other characters who never made it into the show) to go looking for the missing Stark girls, they come afoul of Rorge and Biter, better known as the two heinously disgusting demon boners locked inside the same cage as Jaqen H'Ghar. Biter, as you may have guessed, is the giant feral ogre baby with filed-down cannibal teeth. This becomes important in a moment.

HBO
Along with the fact that the character is literally named Biter. Not exactly subtle, George.

After being released earlier in the story by Arya, Rorge and Biter attack Brienne and Pod at an inn. Biter gets the upper hand and proceeds to eat Brienne's face. Seriously. He fucking eats it:

Biter's mouth tore free, full of blood and flesh. He spat, grinned, and sank his pointed teeth into her flesh again. This time he chewed and swallowed. He is eating me, she realized, but she had no strength left to fight him any longer.

Brienne is saved by Gendry (who is still running around the Riverlands at this point in the novels), but she's left with half a chewed-up hamburger face, not unlike Josh Brolin in Jonah Hex. We assume TV Brienne is still running around with 100 percent of a complexion for the same make-up reasonsTV Tyrion isn't currently waltzing around with a big, golden Humpty-Hump nose.

#4. Ramsay's Wedding Night Is Somehow Much Worse

HBO

Rather than being handed over to Ramsay Bolton like a sack of old Pogs, at the end of A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in the series, Sansa is still safely in The Vale posing as Littlefinger's daughter (we are admittedly stretching the definition of the word "safely" in this context). Instead it is Sansa's gal pal from the Winterfell days, Jeyne Poole (being masqueraded as Arya), who is handed over to the Bastard of Bolton, even though both Ramsay and Roose know damn well she isn't really Arya.

Ramsay marries Jeyne to solidify a claim to Winterfell and forces Theon/Reek to confirm in front of the rest of the Stark bannermen that Jeyne is actually Arya (even though Theon also knows damn well she isn't).

HBO
Evidenced by the lack of spit in their faces.

Now, on the show, viewers got mighty pissed over Sansa and Ramsay's "wedding night" and how it was yet another example of how tasteless and exploitative the show has become in its constant portrayal of sexual assault. This is a 100 percent accurate interpretation, but it is our duty to inform those of you who haven't read the books that Ramsay's wedding night was mind-blowingly worse in George "Mixmaster" Martin's original text:

"No." Lord Ramsay poured himself a cup of wine. "Laces take too long. Cut it off her."
[...] Finally the gown fell away, a pale tangle round her feet. "Her small-clothes too," Ramsay commanded. Reek obeyed.
[...] Ramsay rose, the firelight shining on his face. "Reek, get over here. Get her ready for me."
For a moment he did not understand. "I ... do you mean ... m'lord, I have no ... I ..."
"With your mouth," Lord Ramsay said. "And be quick about it. If she's not wet by the time I'm done disrobing, I will cut off that tongue of yours and nail it to the wall."
Somewhere in the godswood, a raven screamed. The dagger was still in his hand.
He sheathed it.
Reek, my name is Reek, it rhymes with weak. Reek bent to his task.

HBO
"Yo, my name is Reek, and I'm here to say ..." -original draft

Yep. Ramsay, proving he will be difficult to unseat in the upcoming "Most Horrible Person In The Universe" awards, forces Theon to assault Jeyne. Later, when Theon finally decides to try to break her out of Winterfell, we find out that things have only gotten worse for Jeyne, as she stammeringly refuses to go with him:

"No. This is some trick. It's him, it's my ... my lord, my sweet lord, he sent you, this is just some test to make sure that I love him. I do, I do, I love him more than anything." A tear ran down her cheek. "Tell him, you tell him, I'll do what he wants ... or whatever he wants ... with him ... or ... or with the dog or ... please ... he doesn't need to cut my feet off, I won't try to run away, not ever, I'll give him sons, I swear it, I swear it ..."

So, um, yeah. Ramsay makes her have sex with his dogs. What the hell happened to that precocious middle-schooler who used to pester Stan Lee with overly effusive letters praising his ability to write scenes involving The Fantastic Four falling down manholes?

Marvel Comics
"Dear Stan and Jack, who would win in a fight: Dr. Doom or Joe Namath?
Who would win if they turned into naked women? Thanks!"

#3. Theon Has A Bunch Of Insane, Molestery Uncles

HBO

Oh God, this paragraph's not an improvement whatsoever. Anyway, we don't see much of the Iron Islands (the lands of House Greyjoy) in the show, but what little we do see is water-rotted and bleak, like a New Jersey amusement park. We get more than enough of a sense of what life is like there when we meet Theon's terrible prune-dicked father, Balon, in Season 2.

HBO
"I've been giving it some thought, and I decided I'd like both of you to die at sea."

Well, in the novels, Theon has a bunch of uncles that are infinitely worse. Balon's brothers, Euron, Victarion, and Aeron, are part of the biggest family feud never to make it onto television, beginning with Euron nailing Victarion's wife and Victarion beating her to death with his bare hands in response. Please note that this is A Song Of Ice And Fire we're talking about, so Victarion's wife probably had absolutely no choice in her sexual encounter with Euron.

Taylor Hill/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
"Eh, cut it, let's get back to just killing characters you've grown
emotionally attached to, thankyouverymuch."

Because Euron is both a pirate and a character in a George R.R. Martin story, he is all about some rape. It's heavily implied that he used to molest his brothers. Aeron Greyjoy has a clearly traumatic dream about the sounds of a rusted hinge on an opening door, which makes him think of the youngest brother, Urri, for reasons that are simultaneously subtle and disturbingly clear:

The sound came softly, the scream of a rusted hinge. "Urri," he muttered, and woke, fearful. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri.
[...] The sound of a door opening, the scream of a rusted iron hinge. Euron has come again.

So, yeah: HBO removed one instance of incestuous rape and replaced it with one of its own creation. Prestige TV or something!

#2. Qyburn Is A Terrifying Serial Murderer

HBO

Cersei's pal Qyburn, now the Master Of Whisperers, is definitely a creepmaster of the highest degree. Believe it or not, he is substantially toned down in the TV series. In the novels, Qyburn kidnaps people on the reg and performs torturous experiments on them while they're still alive, all in the name of "research." The man is a goddamned necromancing serial murderer.

HBO
"Well, sure, everyone looks bad when you just focus on the murder and necromancy."

For example, when Falyse Stokeworth, the sister of Bronn's wife, Lollys, fails to get Bronn killed as she was told, Cersei decides to throw Qyburn a bone and hands her over to him, since his old subjects are "quite used up."

HBO
"There are just never enough hours in a day for all the incest and clandestine murder."

Now, we feel it is important to point out that not even Cersei is entirely clear on what the fuck Qyburn is up to in his scuttling terror-science chambers. She basically treats him like the monster in her basement, tossing him people who piss her off and shutting the door before she can see exactly what happens to them.

Later on, Cersei thinks about releasing Falyse in order to have her run the Stokeworth household in place of Bronn, because Cersei's paranoia has hit a fever pitch and she really, really wants to take Bronn out. However, when she goes to Qyburn and asks him to go ahead and let Falyse out of her cage or whatever he's been keeping her in, he politely tells her that Falyse is in no shape to rule anything, or "even to feed herself," although he is quick to assure Cersei that he "learned a great deal" from her.

HBO
Answers to important questions such as, "Where will a subscription-only cable channel
draw the 'bad taste' line?"

You know, we kind of agree with Cersei for once. There's no reason to solve this particular mystery, for it will only result in a lifetime of sheet-ruining nightmares.

#1. Dany Violently Craps Her Pants After Riding Drogon

HBO

Remember that scene where Daenerys triumphantly rides off into the sky on the back of her mighty dragon?

The scene, in case you missed it.

That's pretty much exactly what happens in the book, with one important exception. After escaping the fighting pits in the most badass way possible, finally giving readers what they've been waiting to see for two flipping decades, Dany lands in a field and immediately begins shitting herself inside-out. We are in no way kidding:

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelt fouler. By the time the moon came up, she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew.

HBO
"It's the 'Rains Of Asstamere' over here."

Because George "GRRM Reaper" Martin cannot allow his fans to feel elated for more than 10 seconds, Daenerys, Mother Of Dragons, shits a never-ending river of explosive diarrhea like a hose of flat root beer. Maybe it'll be a deleted scene on the Season 5 DVD.